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Tuesday, 24 March 2015

High-tech and low-choice at VIVAMAYR

Yes, I'm hugely lucky that my job lets me travel so much and go to such incredible places. But, you know, it's not all pampering massages and luscious facials, no sirree.

Sometimes you get what you need rather than what you'd really like. Here at VIVAMAYR, there's no perusing long menus of spa 'journeys' and beauty treatments; no umming and aahing about which massage to have. You see the doctor, who orders a battery of tests. Actually I got off quite lightly with just free radical measuring and mineral analysis (maybe because I looked wild-eyed and terrified about the potential costs - each and every test costs extra here and, although as journalists, we get a certain amount for free, even so it's apparently quite easy to rack up a bill that runs into hundreds or even thousands for extras).
So, they took my blood and gave me an infusion of vitamins and minerals in its place...

Next up, I was booked in for a 'relaxing' massage but... My therapist Jan drove his thumb into my shoulder. 'On a scale of one to ten, where ten is unbearable, how much does it hurt?' he said.
'Er,up at about a nine,' I said, tears in my eyes.
He nodded, and kept pressing.
But hey, it's all good. Turns out I've got a rotator cuff injury (have been struggling with arm pain for months) and no amount of soft soothing effluerage is going to fix that.